Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 3 thrives not only on the deeply moving backstory of Rocket and the bickering between the Guardians, but also on the wonderfully vile and hateful villain High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji). But though one or the other in the audience would have wanted it otherwise, Rocket lets the villain live in the finale – only to seemingly go down with his ship. But it’s not that easy.
If you pay close attention to the “Guardians Of The Galaxy 3” finale (which is, of course, much easier after the movie starts on Disney+ than in theaters), you’ll discover that the High Evolutionary is still alive! When the Guardians rescue the villain’s animals after fighting the villain, Drax carries the High Evolutionary on his shoulders:
Do you want to be sure yourself, just watch the movie on Disney+ at two hours, 57 minutes and two seconds. You can clearly see in the scene that the figure on Drax’s shoulders actually has hands, so it can’t be an animal:
After that, no trace of the High Evolutionary is seen in the theatrical cut of “Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3”, but Director and screenwriter James Gunn already confirmed in the context of the theatrical release that this is the Marvel villain. He also explained why Rocket not only spares its maker, but actually saves it:
“It’s the pinnacle of Rocket’s development […] He goes from the least empathetic Guardian to the most empathetic Guardian. It would be foolish and wrong of him to refuse to kill him and then abandon him on an exploding starship.”
Deleted scene shows High Evolutionary alive
In the meantime, a scene has been released that James Gunn has already alluded to and did not make it to the theatrical release of “GotG Vol. 3”. In it, the High Evolutionary is seen being imprisoned in a cell at the Guardians base of Knowhere and also temporarily reattached his facemask to his destroyed face:
So there may be a reunion with the High Evolutionary at some point, although the story is actually told in the MCU. The same goes for many of the Guardians. In this article, we’ve listed how things could go on, which characters now form the new team and what you need to know about the credits scenes: